We have detected that cookies are not enabled on your browser. Please enable cookies to ensure the proper experience.
Warning: JavaScript is required for some functionalities of this page. Please enable the use of JavaScript in your browser. Log In
Register My Account
Log Out (%1$s)

We have detected that cookies are not enabled on your browser. Please enable cookies to ensure the proper experience.

Warning: JavaScript is required for some functionalities of this page. Please enable the use of JavaScript in your browser.

I'm interested in how they will implement it. A light-armor cc class is not what I expected; that's too much like LM. Doesn't seem appropriate for a berserker, but we'll see..
It is true that the first few moments of many raid pulls can be the most difficult. So, if a Beorning can help get control over that, and then switch to dps/bear-form once things are under control, then there will certainly be a role for them in raids.

Changing into bear-form only after building up enough battle-rage at least solves the problem of shaped-changed bears running around Bree and such.

Still not sure about this class choice but at least this implemetation means no hairy naked bear men in Bree

Beornings could bestow baking and bee-keeping skills like minis mentor music. Then we cooks will get to learn to bake best honeycakes. Gimli would approve of that skill

And the minstrel sang to them……”and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.”

Aware of that although from a lore perspective I would doubt you would see any floating around Archet. It was more that I find the fact that there are only 2 starter zones a bit minimal

You have the same problem with Rohirrim, Gondorians, and Dale-men calling Archet 'home' as the starter zone. Granted, it's more jarring to have someone who can shape-shift there, but so long as it's an in combat only effect there is less problem.

If you're worried about RP effects, I just ignore people who throw away common sense and use majiky powers in a tavern. Outside of town I see it being less of an issue.

Thanks for the letter, sounds like there is plenty to look forward to.

Originally Posted by Rowan

2014Paths of the Dead and Dol Amroth: Our second update of the year will kick off a new volume of the Epic Story, featuring the aftermath of the Army of the Dead as they pass through Blackroot Vale. Journey to Dol Amroth, our first Gondorian city and seaside port! You’ll also have five new levels to advance your character.

Dead Marshes: Between updates, we’ll take a small detour to check on wayward Hobbits…

Pelargir: Our third update of the year will take you to the great port of Pelargir on the delta of Anduin. Join the Army of the Dead to defeat the Corsairs of Umbar! This update will also include five new levels.

These new quests and the level caps will all be free to VIPs.

Looking forward to seeing the new content Please though, unless the content is vast, leave out the five additional levels. I could quite happily spend the next year at 95.

Originally Posted by Rowan

Of Bears and Bees
Recently we confirmed that LOTRO will be releasing a new class this year. I’m pleased to announce that this class is the Beorning! This will be LOTRO’s first class since the Mines of Moria expansion introduced the Warden and Rune-keeper.

Beornings are noted in The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a race of Man, with close origins to the Rohirrim and the Men of Dale. Most Men are not shape-changers, so we envision the Beorning as a light armor casting class with a focus on control of the battlefield. When a Beorning gathers sufficient rage, they may transform into a mighty bear.

We’ll be sharing early class designs with the new Players Council. Expect more details later this year, as the class progresses through alpha and beta.

I am not at all surprised that this is the class, and I'm quite excited to see how it will be implemented. I know there has been much speculation, but this is the one I've been hoping for. My one question is how to you intend this to fit in amongst the current class set-ups? As it stands, we are seeing so many (sometimes drastic) changes to classes over the last few updates. My own personal perception is that there is no clear goal in mind for how classes should be, one month we'll do this, another we'll do that, etc. I'm hoping that we'll see the class changes start to balance out before the introduction of this new class.

Originally Posted by Rowan

Housing
This deserves a special mention. After reviewing all our goals for the year, major Housing changes will not be among them. We reviewed multiple options to update the system – none of them met our standards of quality, and ultimately the system you would want us to build.

LOTRO is about the journey, and first and foremost we want to be expanding and growing the world of Middle-earth. This does not mean there will be no changes to Housing, but don’t expect broad, systemic updates. I’m sorry that we set any other expectations in the past, as we know this is a feature that many of you greatly value.

That is disappointing to read. I've been hoping for a grand update to housing ever since it was first mentioned early last year(?). Though I agree it shouldn't take priority, a really good system could be an easy money-maker for you. I know I always refer to Rift (game) - it's the only other MMO I dabble in - but the player housing system there is incredible. Last month I spent about £60 at the in-game store, buying tradable credits and items for housing. CSTM did a lovely write-up of the result (link). A similar system here would surely give you a huge boost to income.

Originally Posted by Rowan

As always, there are also features that we’re working on but haven’t committed a timeline to. Basically, we’ll ship them when they’re ready. Many of these ideas are based on your feedback, so please keep it coming!

Kinships: The next addition to loot options is a system of crafting tied to your Kinship house, which will encourage more social play. Our goal is to create Kinship deeds that you can complete together.

Sounds promising, and after three years of asking I hope you'll take this opportunity to revamp kinships in general.

Originally Posted by Rowan

Combat Rebalancing: You’ve said that high-level combat has gotten too easy, and we agree! With new regions we’ll be taking a hard look at balance and adjusting existing opponents or adding new ones.

As mentioned before, I hope this gets sorted out before the new class is thrown into the works.

Originally Posted by Rowan

PvMP: Why add catapults to the Ettenmoors? Why not? Siege weapons!

I don't partake in PvMP, but any new bone for them to chew on is surely a good thing.

Originally Posted by Rowan

Epic Battles: We’ll continue to update and improve this system, along with a new battle in 2014. There are some epic conflicts ahead in the story.

What this really needs is a token drop and barter option - same as we had in Moria. Random loot is off-putting. It works in other instances where the loot tables are much smaller, and the chances of getting what you want higher, but in Big Battles there are too many items possible that you end up tossing away most drops. It's very disheartening.

Originally Posted by Rowan

Festivals: Hobnanigans (better known as Chicken Hockey) is a special event for the Bree-fields. You can expect new weekend boosts and events as we go forward.

Can't wait to play this Thank you for bringing it back.

Originally Posted by Rowan

2015
Looking out to the future, our Palantir reveals multiple updates in 2015. Here are two of them!

Osgiliath: The middle of 2015 brings us deeper in Gondor, and to lands directly contested by Sauron’s armies.

Pelennor Fields and Minas Tirith: The end of 2015 takes us to one of the defining moments of the War of the Ring, the battle before the walls of Minas Tirith.

As you can tell, we’re in the heart of the story now. It is a tremendous challenge for the team to do justice to these well-known events, but also one we’re thrilled to be undertaking.

Sounds like another year of good updates to look forward to. I really hope that Minas Tirith is going to be huge with lots of levels, buildings and areas to explore. Just no cleaning quests please

I do wonder where you're planning on generating revenue when most of the new content will be free to VIPs. I expect the Beorning class to be purchased and not free, but the landscapes and level-cap increases (please reconsider these increases) will not cost me a penny. Sure VIP subs account for some income, but lifetime players such as myself get all this for nothing and have little need to contribute anything money-wise to the game this year. I don't usually spend my TPs, there's little in the store that I feel offers value for money, which means I end up stock-piling. So when something does come along that I want, I have the option of basically getting it for free.

For example, I have three accounts: two lifetime accounts where the lifetime subs were purchased almost several years ago at £120 (about $200) each; and one former VIP now premium account. In the past I have pre-purchased the expansion packs for all three. I think I must have spent about £180 or so on Riders of Rohan when it became available for purchase. When Helm's Deep was made available, however, I had just moved cities with my other half and was out of work - I had no means to pre-order the expansion for any of my accounts. As soon as it went live, I purchased it for my main account from the store using my stock-piled TPs (500 points a month, saved over the year). My other two accounts, one of which has a stockpile of around 20,000 points, I only just purchased the expansion for them when it went half-price in the store last week. Needless to say, my lifetime sub has proven extremely good value for money to me as a consumer, but not to Turbine as a business. I get that the lifetime account was a huge contribution towards early game development, but I consider that well and truly paid off. A 12-month VIP sub is currently £79.99 which means lifetime subs have a value equal to around 18 months. Which means, yes we contributed a lot at the beginning but after 18 months of use the value to Turbine has all gone (approx October 2008 for those here from launch). That puts us now on our 5th year of, basically, free access to the game. And we still get 500 points a month on top of that to save and spend on more free content.

I can't help but think that the current model for all accounts has some major flaws. With job cuts last year and again this year, and what looks like more free content to come, I hope Turbine aren't digging themselves into a bigger hole.

Wow Rowan, I'm so happy we have you as EP. My eyes are full of joy reading this letter.
Looking forward to the new class, regions and EB's(Yeah I like them ).
Just make sure the EB's are a little bit more interesting for the players who orginally didn't like them, then we will be fine.
I do think beorning sounds more like a race to be honest. Shape-shifter looks more like "warden, Rune Keeper, Hunter", while Beorning sounds more like something that fits in with "Elves and Dwarves" (I hope that makes sense)

2. Can we critique the designs? Because I'd like to throw in my two cents here: keep their human form fairly human-looking. They're just going to stick out a mile in towns otherwise. It'd be nice if skin-changing could be something that happens in battle and not in the town square, and if the character models could look like the regular character models, rather than enormous bloated hairy versions. This is the first 'class' we've had that is described as having distinct physical differences to the others - it's not like wardens are small, or champions are muscled - and yet if you design a whole new character model they're going to be at odds with LOTRO's world in which everyone's the same height, has one of 8 faces and has only a minor body slider.

1. Yes.

2. Yes. It's still early enough that the first design overviews won't go to the Players Council until the end of the month.

I don't know. We already had two spider instances recently and it might be tough to fit a fight in the lore as we couldn't kill her.

We could kill her - if we fought her after Frodo and Sam had gone past. At least I think we can (memory is a bit fuzzy), as doesn't Shelob slink away at the end, after being attacked? Or is that just the movie version?

We could kill her - if we fought her after Frodo and Sam had gone past. At least I think we can (memory is a bit fuzzy), as doesn't Shelob slink away at the end, after being attacked? Or is that just the movie version?

She does. I just looked it up, and he manages to scare her off, but she is *not* killed by Sam, just wounded.

Them: the (normal) men who have chosen Beorn's lineage as their chieftains; only the descendants of Beorn himself (the direct, primogeniture, lineage; a motif repeated in several places in canon) were skin-changers, after Beorn's fashion.

The Master (by whom I mean, the original author) referred to many folk by the lineage of their rulers, only among other, similar, forms of typification: Bardings, Beornings, Eorling(a)s, Dunlendings, Easterlings, etc.; in LoTR Appendices, Azog is reported to have called Thror's servant (Nar), "beardling".

The sentence, "Beorn, himself, was a ..." would be completed, naturally, by the word, "skin-changer"; insert, "Beorning" and it sounds even more dumb than it is lame.

If LoTRO must have skin-changers, please do not call them, 'Beornings'; anything but, 'Beorning'. Please.

You have the same problem with Rohirrim, Gondorians, and Dale-men calling Archet 'home' as the starter zone. Granted, it's more jarring to have someone who can shape-shift there, but so long as it's an in combat only effect there is less problem.

If you're worried about RP effects, I just ignore people who throw away common sense and use majiky powers in a tavern. Outside of town I see it being less of an issue.

To be fair I'm less worried about lore than the fact that as a class that is not so much a man as Rohirrim, Gondorians, and Dale-men but more like Dúnedain they have some attributes of Man but are actually more that just a man, that would be the main reason why I thing they deserve a starter zone for themselves if not only to help explain the history of the class a bit better

When I first heard this, I thought, meh. But now I can envision this idea and can see how it adds a different challenge. Imagine creeps or freeps in TR (either turtling or trying to take it). The defending side can set up a catapult and start hitting the building like in big battles, knocking x morale off everyone with every hit. You would have to send a group out to destroy the catapult. At least in my mind that's how I envision it!

when you put it that way it sounds spot on don't forget ladders, ballistas, siege ladders. and the like, though if they had rams they may need to actually put doors on the keeps, I sense a helmsdeep style pvp

Good job guys can't wait to see how you progress the story, I would also like to say that communication wise this is the best I have know Turbine to be your keeping us informed and asking for feedback I for one really appreciate the effort your putting into the game and hope it continues and improves .

Let me start by saying that I'm really excited to have Rowan back. I see the direction of the game changing for the better, and the communication has improved VASTLY since his return. I'm happy to see the plans laid out for the various locations and events well in advance, and that they think enough of their player base to actually announce them ahead of time. That being said...

I feel TOTALLY burned on the cancellation of the housing update. I realize that some of the promises were made by the previous "administration", and I appreciate that we can't hold the current team completely responsible for what was laid out before. However, I was under the impression that one of the main reasons for cutting back on a major expansion, raid content (don't use it, but I know it upset a lot of players), instances, etc., was specifically to address things in the game that had been left alone for too long. Updates were made to regions that desparately needed updating, which is great. From what Rowan has said, (and I believe him, because he's certainly not holding anything back so far) a major housing update was looked at, and they just couldn't find a system that met with expectations. I can even accept that. I do feel, however, that changes could (and should) have been made within the existing sytem to satisfy at least SOME of the immense amount of feedback they've received from the players.

Instead, we get a Beorning class. I know they were mentioned in the books, so I guess in that sense, they fit the lore. Past that, it's a reach, but not more so than a dwarf shooting lightning bolts at people. (Or his stones shooting lightning bolts, or the runes on his stones...whatever. Things are getting shot with lightning bolts.) At some point, I guess we just have to accept that this is a video game, and making it fun and interesting so people will play it (and pay for it) is the chief concern of those producing it. While I realize that, I personally would have MUCH rather had the time and money put into improvements to the housing system than a new class. It's just a disappointing development.

Update 13 has shown some real promise in terms of fixing the little things, though. The bag storage changes seem like a wonderful idea, as does the ability to attach up to 10 items (or stacks) in a single mail message. I also cannot stress enough how thrilled I am with the consolidation of scholar resources. This change alone will free up 20-some spaces in my vaults, as well as making the search for certain scholar items obsolete. Recipes will be simplified, crafting will level up faster for scholars at all levels...great change. I'm almost as excited to check off all of the notifications we can now eliminate, like confirming the delete of mail messages and using IXP runes, as well as the "label" function of critical success crafted items. Huge time-saver, that.

Thanks for everything, and keep up the hard work. Just remember that there are likely many long-time players like me who would MUCH prefer housing improvements to shape-shfiting bear people.

-Thundertrain

"Not all those who wander are lost." -Tolkien
"No matter where you go, there you are." -Confucius

Thanks for everything, and keep up the hard work. Just remember that there are likely many long-time players like me who would MUCH prefer housing improvements to shape-shfiting bear people.

Heh, count me as one of them. Ah well.

I wanted to add something else, too: Dol Amroth adding 5 levels, then Pelargir another 5 levels seems like total overkill. Why not just round the level cap to a nice, even 100 for a while? Gondor is absolutely huge, so unless you plan on adding *all* that enormous amounts of land between the two cities (which would make me surprised it was not a paid expansion, tbh), I guess I do not see the need for more than 5 levels. I suppose what I want to see is a map of the lands you're planning to develop, hah... if we're getting all of the seven rivers and their cities, and Lebennin and Lossarnach and all of Belfalas, too...

You have the same problem with Rohirrim, Gondorians, and Dale-men calling Archet 'home' as the starter zone. Granted, it's more jarring to have someone who can shape-shift there, but so long as it's an in combat only effect there is less problem.

If you're worried about RP effects, I just ignore people who throw away common sense and use majiky powers in a tavern. Outside of town I see it being less of an issue.

I would imagine that they cant shape shift for at least 20-45 levels anyway.

Wow, we're getting way more landscape content this year than I was anticipating. Getting Dol Amroth and Pelargir, and presumably the lands between the White Mountains and these cities, along with the Entwood and the Dead Marshes, means we're easily getting a whole expansion's worth of landscape content this year. Throw in the new class and the level cap increases, and I'm a little surprised Turbine hasn't gone the route of calling it an expansion pack and charging us for it. The only thing we aren't getting is a new system and new instance content. I think the choice not to release a paid expansion in 2014 really was made with players' interests and desires in mind, rather than out of a desire to have a "year off".

This should settle some of the nerves that were rattled by the layoffs earlier this year, and it also suggests that Turbine and LOTRO are faring pretty well from a financial perspective. I'm also happy to see Rowan's comment hinting that there's still plenty of content to come once we finish off the War of the Ring. And of course, hooray for Minas Tirith and Osgiliath next year. LOTRO's future is looking brighter to me than it has in quite a while.

The lack of new instance content outside of the new battle is still a punch in the tummy, but it's very old news at this point. Moving on.

I've been trying to figure out what route we would take to get to the Dead Marshes, and I haven't quite figured it out yet. I thought we might be getting northern Ithilien this year, which would provide a viable route, but it sounds like that's out. My best guesses at this point are that we'll reach the Dead Marshes via that gate in the Brown Lands or that we'll be ported there somehow. I'm hoping for the former, because I like it when my landscape is all connected, thankyouverymuch. We could get a path that leads through the Emyn Muil, were it not for the fact that the Emyn Muil are impassable...

Really surprised by the level cap increase. I expected us to remain at level 95 until the next paid expansion. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I guess the new class system makes it easier for the devs to increase the level cap, but two level cap increases in the space of a year is going to make things pretty hard for players.

I was one of the people who was guessing we'd get a Beorning/skinchanger as our next class, and I got some criticism for it on the forums, so I'm feeling pretty vindicated now. I'm happy that it sounds like shapeshifting will be restricted to combat; that addressed my primary concern about a Beorning class, that we might end up with an obnoxious number of bear PCs running around in Bree. I would rather the class was called a skinchanger; that would tie it less closely to Beorn and his people, which would make the lore issues easier to deal with.

As a LM, my hackles are raised a little by the bit about Beornings focusing on controlling the battlefield. I'm territorial about my LM and her CC abilities.

Overall, I'm pretty jazzed about this producer's letter. I'm looking forward to the rest of the year.

[color=#FF3366][b]A vote for Saruman is a vote for progress! Vote today![/color][/b]

I wanted to add something else, too: Dol Amroth adding 5 levels, then Pelargir another 5 levels seems like total overkill. Why not just round the level cap to a nice, even 100 for a while? Gondor is absolutely huge, so unless you plan on adding *all* that enormous amounts of land between the two cities (which would make me surprised it was not a paid expansion, tbh), I guess I do not see the need for more than 5 levels. I suppose what I want to see is a map of the lands you're planning to develop, hah... if we're getting all of the seven rivers and their cities, and Lebennin and Lossarnach and all of Belfalas, too...

We could kill her - if we fought her after Frodo and Sam had gone past. At least I think we can (memory is a bit fuzzy), as doesn't Shelob slink away at the end, after being attacked? Or is that just the movie version?

"Shelob was gone; and whether she lay long in her lair nursing her malice and misery, and in the slow years of darkness healed herself from within, rebuilding her clustered eyes, until with hunger like death she spun once more her dreadful snares in the glens of the Mountains of Shadow, this tale does not tell."